designing with empathy: how user research can help you make better products

Designing with Empathy

Katie McCurdy • @katiemccurdy

How user research can help you make better products

UX designer + researcher hailing from the mitten

Open mHealth: making better use of digital health data

Notabli: organize, curate, & privately share childhood

I’m a ‘stalky tiger research’ person

I pounce when the time is right

Yo, let’s do our research. Let’s validate.

Do we really understand the people we’re designing for?

Are we sure we’re solving the right problem?

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

https://www.flickr.com/photos/theequinest/4395127963/




‘If I’d asked people what they wanted, they

would have said a faster horse.”




- Henry Ford never said this.








- But other people will. You gotta be ready.




How do you respond?


We don’t ask people what they want. We work to understand their fears, needs,

contexts, problems, and emotions.

That helps us solve the right problem in the most compelling way possible.

Intuitive

Logical

Easy

I understand it

I know how to use it

USABILITY TESTING HEURISTIC ANALYSIS

Compelling

Fun

It understands me

Pleasing

I must have it

INTERVIEWS & OBSERVATION PARTICIPATORY DESIGN

Intuitive Compelling

Logical

Easy Fun

It understands me

Pleasing

I understand it

I know how to use it I must have it




Logical

Easy Fun

It understands me

Pleasing

I understand it




It understands me

I must have it


Logical

Easy Fun

It understands me

Pleasing

I understand it




It understands me

I must have it

We get here through empathy

Empathy helps you optimize:

Form factor

Feature prioritization

Tone & voice

Color palette & visual style

Marketing messaging

…and so much more

Research saves you time and money

An estimated 50% of engineering time is spent on doing rework that could have been avoided.

http://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/01/06/invest-in-ux/


Fixing an ‘error’ after development is up to 100 times as expensive as it would have been before.



A little up-front UX research can save you hundreds of engineering hours and thousands of dollars.


Understanding users is like brushing your teeth

If you don’t do it, you feel gross

How do we build empathy?

Interviews & observation

Interviews & Observation > How it works

What: Set up time to talk with representative users, ideally in their environment. Or, simply observe them.

Purpose: Understand their context, problems, mental models, values, motivations; find differences in what people say and how they act.

Learn more: Observing the User Experience by Mike Kuniavsky

Insight: finding out the parts of patients’ stories

Action: account for those parts in patient storytelling app

Participatory design

Participatory design > How it works

What: Early in the design process: bring your end users into the design process, usually in a workshop format.

Purpose: Uncover mental models, research emotionally charged subject matter or things that are hard to describe.

Learn more: I pulled some info together at katiemccurdy.com/participatory-design/

Example: ask patients to draw their symptoms on a body

Insight: patients used shape to indicate sensation quality

Action: incorporate shapes into symptom tracking app

Synthesizing & visualizing findings

Synthesize: uncover themes through affinity diagramming

Model & visualize findings

Visualize & empathize: personas

Rick Browning, Passive Patient

It's hard to navigate the system. I try to do what they tell me, but everything feels so disorganized. I don't feel like I have a voice."

26 year-old designer in Dayton, OHSingleHospitalized for 3 months after emergency surgery

Crohn's Disease

Diagnosis 10 years

⁃ Help me gain a voice, be more confident⁃ Help the doctors believe & trust me⁃ Feel like I'm being guided to help improve

my treatment⁃ Organize info for myself and my support

network⁃ Make it easier to tell my story⁃ Communicate my symptoms better

Needs⁃ Guide me so it feels easy⁃ A virtual 'medical bracelet' that would help

communicate the high level warnings and facts

⁃ New ways of showing how I feel⁃ Share with patients and see stories like

mine⁃ Make my story mobile and portable⁃ Help me keep track of all this information

Opportunities

Empowered

In controlArticulate

Coached

Creative

GuidedAccomplished

In my years I have had Crohn's, I've had a few life-or-death situations. The symptoms get stronger and stronger, and suddenly you're in the hospital for days or weeks. I've had a number of surgeries. I have depended on my healthcare team and my mom to help me recover; when I'm sick, I don't always have the energy to stay organized. I have to trust that the experts know what is best for me. There are also times when I just don't want to deal with having Crohn's; I just want to get my old life back.

There have been a bunch of times when I felt like the staff wasn't communicating, and I don't know if there is anything I can do about that. One time I was in the hospital for another surgery and they wanted to put in a main line. I told the nurses that I couldn't have one, because I have gotten bad infections in the past from that; when I got out of surgery, what do you know, I had a main line IV. It got infected, just like before. I almost died, just because either they didn't listen to me or the message got lost in the system.

Approach

⁃ I try to explain how I'm different from other crohn's patients when I see a new doctor, but they don't always listen

⁃ I don't feel like I have enough information to be helpful.

⁃ Being in the hospital for so long, I get very lonely and bored

⁃ I don't feel my treatment takes into account my whole person, but I don't know what to do about it.

⁃ Medical staff don't believe me if they can't see it

Pain pointsBehaviors & mindset⁃ Let others handle it ⁃ Trust that the doctors know what's best⁃ Keep up with my medication & treatments⁃ In denial a little bit - just want to be normal

Passive Proactive

Disorganized Organized

Help me feel:

Ownership

CollaborationUnderstanding

Usability testing

Usability testing > How it works

What: Anytime in design process, test prototype or product with representative users. Can be cheap & fast!

Purpose: Find out if your product is usable, if it resonates, if it makes sense, is enjoyable, and more.

Learn more: Observing the User Experience, usertesting.com

Insight: realizing our ‘red’ had to go

Red is a ‘guilt’ color for diabetics

Insight: “But how much does it cost??!!”

This line helped!

Case Studies!

Linq at Open mHealth

Challenge

Create a way for clinicians to “prescribe” health data tracking and for clinicians and patients to view and

understand the resulting data.

Research activities:

• Interviews with doctors + patients • Distillation + modeling findings • Personas • Usability testing

Using the ‘Double Diamond’ model to plan

User interviews (knowledge gap: cardiovascular patients)

Findings brief

Personas

Design principles

Insight: Doctor-patient relationship was extremely important

Design idea: ‘connect’ doctor and patient in the interface

Insight: Patients love having access to their doctor

Product decision: Include asynchronous messaging

Insight: Patients put their meds out where they can see them

Design idea: reminder cards to help people keep tracking

Testing patient app prototypes (Flinto)

Get a better image of this.

Testing web app prototypes (UXpin)

Helped us get to a better ‘summary’ overview

Be a champion

Tell stories (ones with concrete ROI are especially good)

Our conversion rate increased by 45% when we updated our copy so that it addressed our users’ #1 anxiety point

Be a watchful tiger

Stay hygienic

Thanks for your time!

Katie McCurdy • @katiemccurdy